that hater of Oxford, the Warden's relative, Bernard
Boreham.

"I have just got your friend Boreham to undertake a job of work," said
Bingham. "It'll do him a world of good to have work, a library to
catalogue for the use of our prisoners. He wanted to shove off the job
to some chaplain. I was to procure the chaplain, just as if all men
weren't scarce, even chaplains!"

Composed as the Warden was, he looked at Bingham with something of eager
attention on his face, as if relying on him for support and
conversation.

"Poor old Boreham, he is a connection of mine by marriage," he said, and
as the words fell from his lips, he, in his present sensitive mood,
recoiled from them, for they implied that Boreham was not a friend. Why
was he posing as one who was too superior to choose Boreham as a friend?

"Talking of chaplains," said Bingham, who knew nothing of what was going
on in the Warden's mind, and thought this sudden stop came from dislike
of any reference to Boreham--"talking of parsons, why not release all
parsons in West End churches for the war?"

A smile came into May's face at the extreme sweetness of Bingham's
voice; a warning that he was about to say something biting.

"Release all parsons who have smart congregations," continued Bingham,
in honied tones; "parsons with congregations of jolly, well-dressed
women, women who enjoy having their naughtiness slanged from the pulpit
just as they enjoy having their photographs in the picture papers. Their
spiritual necessities would be more than adequately provided for if they
were given a dummy priest and a gramophone."

May's smile seemed to stimulate Bingham's imagination.

"To waste on them a real parson with a soul and a rudimentary
intellect," he went on, "is like giving a glass of Moselle to an
agricultural labourer when he would be happy with a mug of beer. But the
Church wastes its energies even in this time of heartbreakings."

"I should like to see you, Bingham," said the Warden, smiling too, and
turning his narrow eyes, in his slow deliberate manner, towards his
guest, "as chairman to a committee of English bishops, on the
Reconstruction of the Church."

"I've no quarrel with our bishops," said Bingham; "I don't want them to
extol every new point of view as they pass along. I don't expect them to
behave like young men. Nor do I expect them to be like the Absolute,
without 'body, parts or passions.' My indictment is not even against
that mere drop